I’m enjoying the last few days of freedom before the craziness of September begins. This year I am hoping to focus a lot on adult catechesis, which the Church teaches should be the central form of catechesis (check out the General Directory for Catechesis). I was very touched by this tribute to Fr Alan Fudge who died recently. I never met him or heard him preach, but heard he was a wonderful preacher. What inspired me in this tribute was his dedication to adult catechesis. The need for this is huge. I recently found the following quotation by Tracey Rowland, of the JPII Institute for Marriage and Family in Melbourne, which speaks for itself in summarising the great need for adult catechesis:
“I think that people who leave the Church are not leaving the Church because they are rejecting the teachings of John Paul II or Pope Benedict. Most of them who leave do so because they go to Catholic schools and they think that the kind of warm secular humanism with Christian gloss that they get in Catholic schools is in fact the Catholic faith and it hasn’t captured their imagination, their love or their intellect so they are walking away from something that they do not know. It’s not like a love affair where you reject a person you learnt to know and love. They’ve never been in love with the Church. They’ve never known it.”
Another thing I am looking forward to about this year is using the YouCat. This is such an excellent resource for youth catechesis, and this year our Confirmation programme is based on it. Watch the promo video below…
